Data communication channels generally include encoding of data before it passes through a communication medium, and decoding of data after it has passed through a communication medium. Data encoding and decoding is used, for example, in data storage devices for encoding data that is written on a storage medium and decoding data that is read from a storage medium. Encoding is applied in order to convert the data into a form that is compatible with the binary characteristic of the storage medium, and can include processes such as adding error correction codes, interleaving, turbo encoding, bandwidth limiting, amplification and many other known encoding processes. Decoding processes are generally inverse functions of the encoding processes. Encoding and decoding increases the reliability of the reproduced data.
The increasing demand for high data rate communications systems and high-density data storage devices has lead to intensive focus on implementation issues of encoding and decoding that provides a combination of low bit error rate (BER), high speed, low power coding and decoding, and low cost. In designing encoders and decoders, there are complex design tradeoffs that keep changing as technologies advance.
As the performance in the area of higher speed and lower power consumption improve in other parts of a data storage device, there is a need to advance the design of the encoding and decoding in the data communication channel such that the encoding/decoding performance does not limit the overall performance of new design data storage devices.
Embodiments of the present invention provide solutions to these and other problems, and offer other advantages over the prior art.